I'm slightly concerned about your relative lack of 3/2's on Turn 2; that might lead to you getting blown out in a few games if you have bad mulligan luck.

yeah, I really didn't know what to pick there. I figured minion was the best.

14 is Tidehunter no question. If your opponent doesn't have a way to kill the 2/1 (e.g. Mage/Rogue/Druid hero power), it trades evenly with another 2-drop. Wisp and Sinister will never do something like that.

The lack of 2-drops isn't as bad with all the cheap removal. You may miss an opportunity to get ahead on the board, but you're not going to straight up die.

Brought a Mage down to 1 health as a Druid. They dropped Ice Barrier, Molten Giant, Sunfury Protector, and Cone of Cold, and killed me the next turn, spamming "My magic will tear you apart!" the whole time.

Played against a Warrior that used Brawl, killed 6 of my minions with Gorehowl charges, had two Ogres and a Molten Giant...and I still ended up a card ahead by the time we went to fatigue, having killed all of his outs.

At one point, I had 12 health, he had 30 health + 10 armor, and I was down to 1 card in hand vs 4...and still won. Completely ridiculous value grind to get back in it.

I recently won an Arena game cuz of Thoughtsteal information.We were both low on cards and near Topdeck mode, and I knew that he has Execute and Cleave as removals in his last few cards. So all I had to do is maintain a board with 1 healthy minion on my own, and he has two dead cards. Turned out those were his last two, I think. And if I had dropped my Loot Hoarder that would let him kill that guy and Lightspawn and probably win on fatigue, fortunately I knew exactly what he had in hand

I recently won an Arena game cuz of Thoughtsteal information.We were both low on cards and near Topdeck mode, and I knew that he has Execute and Cleave as removals in his last few cards. So all I had to do is maintain a board with 1 healthy minion on my own, and he has two dead cards. Turned out those were his last two, I think. And if I had dropped my Loot Hoarder that would let him kill that guy and Lightspawn and probably win on fatigue, fortunately I knew exactly what he had in hand

Felt so awesome

I'm sure this has been discussed in a MtG context somewhere before, but I wonder if the game would be better or worse if the complete decklist were public information.

Worse.MTG does it only when it has to, like when some players are compromised on big, 2-3 days tournments, cuz some players are at disadvantage if their deck got featured (esp the deck tech) and now everybody got access to it.

In other news,WTF IS WITH THESE COMMONS AS ARENA AWARDS?It's as they are giving me 5 dust. It is insulting. I had lke 10, 8, 5, and 3 arena today, EACH time I got a common (one gold, though, but not that it matters).It... UGH. So frustrating.

Worse.MTG does it only when it has to, like when some players are compromised on big, 2-3 days tournments, cuz some players are at disadvantage if their deck got featured (esp the deck tech) and now everybody got access to it.

But *why* is it worse? Is so much of the intrigue of the game based on surprising your opponents?

Quote

In other news,WTF IS WITH THESE COMMONS AS ARENA AWARDS?It's as they are giving me 5 dust. It is insulting. I had lke 10, 8, 5, and 3 arena today, EACH time I got a common (one gold, though, but not that it matters).It... UGH. So frustrating.

100% agree. Except gold commons are fine. They are worth a reasonable amount of dust. I think 50. Non-gold commons were semi-reasonable for 0-2 wins back when it was 5 boxes no matter how many wins you got, because you have to give some bad stuff, but now it's so much worse than anything you can get. I've gotten a non-gold common on a 12 win run, which is just ridiculous compared to the contents of the other boxes.

Worse.MTG does it only when it has to, like when some players are compromised on big, 2-3 days tournments, cuz some players are at disadvantage if their deck got featured (esp the deck tech) and now everybody got access to it.

But *why* is it worse? Is so much of the intrigue of the game based on surprising your opponents?

I don't see what revealing decklists bring. It's like revealing hands.You need to consider your plays and predict future plays with much more uncertainty, which means experience and knowing the meta/game and and exact netdecklists as well those more unusual builds/cards some use is more meaningful. And I think that is good and skillful, as that is/should be the part of the game.

I don't see what revealing decklists bring. It's like revealing hands.

It increases the importance of calculation, especially in control-control matchups. In general, having more information makes calculation more valuable and guessing less valuable. Take Chess as an extreme example: you have all the information, so there's no guessing and a lot of calculation. I don't think having more calculation is necessarily better or worse, it's just different, and the sweet spot of how much is best will vary for different people.

Worse.MTG does it only when it has to, like when some players are compromised on big, 2-3 days tournments, cuz some players are at disadvantage if their deck got featured (esp the deck tech) and now everybody got access to it.

But *why* is it worse? Is so much of the intrigue of the game based on surprising your opponents?

I don't see what revealing decklists bring. It's like revealing hands.You need to consider your plays and predict future plays with much more uncertainty, which means experience and knowing the meta/game and and exact netdecklists as well those more unusual builds/cards some use is more meaningful. And I think that is good and skillful, as that is/should be the part of the game.

I don't know much at all about MtG, but I'm guessing knowing the full decklist would make unpopular, situational cards even more unpopular. Can't think of any good examples of Hearthstone cards that would become even more unplayable than they are now. Anyway, revealing the decklist really ruins secrets too, should you decide to only run a couple for support.

Edit: Unless you hide the secrets, only showing how many the the player has.

Worse.MTG does it only when it has to, like when some players are compromised on big, 2-3 days tournments, cuz some players are at disadvantage if their deck got featured (esp the deck tech) and now everybody got access to it.

But *why* is it worse? Is so much of the intrigue of the game based on surprising your opponents?

I don't see what revealing decklists bring. It's like revealing hands.You need to consider your plays and predict future plays with much more uncertainty, which means experience and knowing the meta/game and and exact netdecklists as well those more unusual builds/cards some use is more meaningful. And I think that is good and skillful, as that is/should be the part of the game.

You're in a sense computing probabilities no matter what. It's just a matter of what the probability space is. Limiting the probability space increases the impact of in-game decisions, since the difference between computing and not computing is larger. In that sense, the gameplay becomes more skill-based and less random. The downside is that it takes out the value of deception, particularly in deck-building. You can't get value out of a surprise factor, which might limit the variety of possible decks. I assume this is valued more than the skill in play (otherwise tournaments would require people to disclose their decklists). However, for arena, deckbuilding is already restricted, but not in a way that makes decks homogenous, so I think the balance between this and the play skill element favors revealing decklists.

Worse.MTG does it only when it has to, like when some players are compromised on big, 2-3 days tournments, cuz some players are at disadvantage if their deck got featured (esp the deck tech) and now everybody got access to it.

But *why* is it worse? Is so much of the intrigue of the game based on surprising your opponents?

I don't see what revealing decklists bring. It's like revealing hands.You need to consider your plays and predict future plays with much more uncertainty, which means experience and knowing the meta/game and and exact netdecklists as well those more unusual builds/cards some use is more meaningful. And I think that is good and skillful, as that is/should be the part of the game.

I don't know much at all about MtG, but I'm guessing knowing the full decklist would make unpopular, situational cards even more unpopular. Can't think of any good examples of Hearthstone cards that would become even more unplayable than they are now. Anyway, revealing the decklist really ruins secrets too, should you decide to only run a couple for support.

Edit: Unless you hide the secrets, only showing how many the the player has.

In constructed, giving the opponent the knowledge that you don't have Big Game Hunter in your deck is a big deal, for example.

I like not revealing the decklist from a game design perspective. For a new player, there's less information to overwhelm you, and for an experienced player who knows the cards his opponent could potentially be running, there's more stuff that you have to take into account when making decisions.

Note: When I finished I realized I only had 29 cards, not 30 in arena mastery. Found I had missed one of my frostbolt picks so that's number 30. Those cards aren't necessarily the cards that came up with the frostbolt because I forgot

Pick #2: Stormpike Commando over ShieldbearerPick #6: I'd probably go Gnomish InventorPick #10: I could see this one going either way but I'm sure Faceless will do finePick #15: I'd go for the 2/3, the 1 damage isn't worth one more mana for a worse creaturePick #17: I really like Frostwolf Warlord in arenaPick #26: Oh wow, two legendaries! Not sure if I'd go Thalnos over a bigger body. His spell damage is nice but there's no guarantee you'll be able to use it effectively

Your deck looks good, you had a lot of good cards to choose from this draft!

I mostly agree, except I don't know what "other way" you're talking about on pick 10. Faceless is waaaaaay better than Molten or Crab...

I also want to expand on why Fuegen is better than Thalnos. You don't really have too many damage spells. At this point you have 1 Frostbolt and a Flamestrike, which is typically to expensive to play the same turn as Thalnos. So for the most part, Thalnos is just a delayed Novice Engineer in this deck, which is definitely worse than a 4/7 for 5.

Also, on picks 7 and 9, I like Mana Wyrm and Bluegill better than Loot and Aco. Both are very close and a matter of cards vs tempo. Then I take Intellect over Gurubashi to get back the card advantage. Gurubashi is okay for Mage, but really only good in Priest. Pinging it into 5/6 is fine, since 5/6 trades well with most things, but at 7 mana... meh.

are the highlights. My early game isn't that good if I don't draw the Innervates, and all the removal I have means I have surprisingly few creatures to start dealing damage. However, when I draw the right opening, it is completely hilarious. One time, I turn 2 double Innervated out an Ogre. In the game I just played against Priest, my turns went

I didn't actually spend the time to put this in pick-by-pick, and I'll admit I wasn't really trying my hardest on this Arena. But it ended up being a fun deck and went 3-3. My first pick was KT Mage. Worst case scenario, it's a 4/3 body for 3 and I don't draft any secrets.

Instead, I end up with 5 secrets in here. KT Mage gets used to its fullest in all six games. Duplicate ends up used on Mirror Image a couple of times, alas, though getting effectively a second MI for 0 mana isn't horrible. But the most fun was Duplicate hitting DI Dwarf and Faerie Dragon at various points. I believe it also grabbed one minion that was from Mirror Entity.

I'm not certain there's a place in the Constructed meta for a crazy mage-secrets deck, but this was fun to play.

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I didn't actually spend the time to put this in pick-by-pick, and I'll admit I wasn't really trying my hardest on this Arena. But it ended up being a fun deck and went 3-3. My first pick was KT Mage. Worst case scenario, it's a 4/3 body for 3 and I don't draft any secrets.

Instead, I end up with 5 secrets in here. KT Mage gets used to its fullest in all six games. Duplicate ends up used on Mirror Image a couple of times, alas, though getting effectively a second MI for 0 mana isn't horrible. But the most fun was Duplicate hitting DI Dwarf and Faerie Dragon at various points. I believe it also grabbed one minion that was from Mirror Entity.

I'm not certain there's a place in the Constructed meta for a crazy mage-secrets deck, but this was fun to play.

Secret heavy mages are too gimmicky I think to be serious constructed decks. Even with Mad Scientist. I think Hunters heavy on secrets are better because they are harder to play around than most of the mage ones.

To be fair, not many opponents are going to have a response to T3 VC Merc, unless they kept a removal in hand just to counter such a thing. And of course a druid would need either a pair of Swipes/Wraths or a Naturalize.

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So I went 12-2 with Shaman! It was pretty good, two Spectral Knights did lots of work against Mages and 2x Hex + 1x Lightning Storm were useful. No Fire Elementals, but more than my fair share of 10/10 Frostwolf Warlords. There was also a good game which started out with